Methods to Collect Data

Here are the six data collection methods:

 Interviews.
 Questionnaires and surveys.
 Observations.
 Documents and records.
 Focus groups.
 Oral histories

Classification of Data

Data classification is the process of analyzing structured or unstructured data and organizing it
into categories based on file type, contents, and other metadata. Data classification helps
organizations answer important questions about their data that inform how they mitigate risk
and manage data governance policies

Types of Data

There are two types of data mentioned below;

 User
 Automated

User

When you task users to classify their own data, you need to define sensitivity levels, train your
users to identify each level and provide a mechanism to tag and classify all new files they create
The advantage of user classification is humans are pretty good at judging whether information
is sensitive or not. With appropriate tooling and easy to understand rules, classification
accuracy can be quite good, but it is highly dependent on the diligence of your users, and won’t
scale to keep up with data creation.

Automated
Automated data classification engines employ a file parser combined with a string analysis
system to find data in files. A file parser allows the data classification engine to read the
contents of several different types of files. A string analysis system then matches data in the
files to defined search parameters.
Automated classification is much more efficient than user-based classification, but the accuracy
depends on the quality of the parser. Varonis’ Data Classification Engine includes a few key
features to help validate results and decrease false positives—namely proximity of text,
negative keywords, match ranges, and validation algorithms.